2013 – Week 7 and Overindulgence

Newsletter number seven is a rather sunny one. Look what the weather has in store for me for the week ahead. Yes, I’m smiling. I know you didn’t ask, but that’s irrelevant, really.

Editing – job done as planned, and a new edit started on Friday. All looking good, and feeling even better.

My TBR list – is getting out of hand. I daren’t even look at the number of titles on my kindle. I just try to keep my weekly downloads under twenty.

I’m reading Marie Harbon’s Seven Point Eight (The First Chronicle). I’m only part-way through it, but I’m enjoying it. It’s a very well-written book, and the author is either from a scientific background or has done and incredible amount of careful research. Hat off to her already.

And now to the new item this week – relaxation. I figured I don’t know enough about this term, so why shouldn’t I try to learn about it in the same way I’d research a new piece of software or a helpful blogger? So far, I haven’t worked out how to do it, but I haven’t lost hope yet. Research and testing are in progress. I’m open to suggestions, so please don’t hesitate to make some.

Let me tell you what started it. For weeks I’ve worked harder and longer hours, always aiming to do more or better than the previous week, or day, or hour. I haven’t done it because I’ve caught some weird strain of OCD. No. I’ve simply overindulged.

I love editing, and I love the feeling I get when I see a manuscript become a book and do well. I also love reading, and so I can’t stop myself from picking up book after book after book, and since I know how useful reviews are, well, I can’t not leave a review. I love writing, so I write. Not everything I write I deem worthy of public exposure, but some of it makes it. I love helping others, and so I offer to help indie authors with beta-reading, voting on Goodreads, blog posts and the like, and then there’s making new friends on social media, which I also love, and there’s improving my knowledge by reading articles on various themes, and new bloggers to find, and profiles to build up on sites such as LinkedIn, and then… and then…

It never stops. There aren’t enough hours in the day for everything I want to do. And the funny part is – no one pushes me to do it. I love doing all those things. So I fill my days with my favourite activities. I don’t seem to know where to draw the line. My days pass in a blur and I end each day planning what I need to do the following day. When I wake up, I just hit the ground running. I wouldn’t know how to relax if it slapped me around the face and said ‘hello’.

Some people love chocolate… I… Actually, I love chocolate, too. Oh, God! This overindulgence is getting worse by the minute!

So, tell me. How do I stop? How do I slow down? How do I relax? And make it really good advice – I hate denying myself for no good reason. Do you have such problems or is it just me?

You know I’m with you in this one Ella…. I can’t count on two hands how many 20+ hr days I’ve done. I think the longest stint was 30hrs straight. My relaxing time arrives when friends turn up with a couple of changes of clothes and we spend the weekend cooking healthy meals followed by not so healthy junk food while we sit with our feet up and watching our favorite Tv series and movies for 2 days in a row. Basically that is the only thing that will stop me from working for any length of time. But should said friends nod off at any stage…. which is always guaranteed… the laptop is fired up immediately 🙂 you see, I too, love what I do. Xxx